Conventional low power xenon metal halide discharge lamps such as the capped lamp known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,736,881A, U.S. Pat. No. 5,646,471A have been widely used as head lights for vehicles in Japan and Europe.
These kinds of lamps when installed in vehicle lanterns always emit substantially more glare than halogen tungsten lamps. As a result special lanterns, reflectors, lenses, lens hoods and light shields must be provided to limit the glare and to form the desired light beam profile in order to meet applicable vehicle lamp regulations. This results in relatively high cost.